The Teacher (Jan Hrebejk 2016): Slovakia

Reviewed by Veronica Arvidsson. Santa Barbara International Film Festival 2017.

The Taecher is the Slovakian, Czech Republican comedy/drama from director Jan Hrebejk, starring Zuzana Mauréry as the teacher who’s grieving her late husband and rules her student’s as an unfair dictator in a classroom infected with corruption and bribes. Zuzana Mauréry’s acting career is not at all too long or distinctive but she gives an astonishing comedic self-confident performance of the role as The Teacher.

The film is a story of a teacher who after having suffered the great loss of her military husband now is starting to teach a new class of young students. If her grief is what lays the foundation for her behavior to abuse her power as authority in the classroom we don’t know, but we do know that it’s certainly not a person at ease that the students and their parents are faced to deal with. In order to get good grades the students must perform favors for the teacher and sometimes those favors goes through their parents. The line between what is a favor and what is a bribe becomes unclear for some of the parents. It’s first when one of the students is tormented severely, by the actions caused by the teacher, that some of the parents starts questioning the methods of the teacher and they pick up the fight against her, but that turns out to be easier said than done.

With an authentic setting of a suburban school from the 80’s in Bratislava, focusing on the composition of the scene with full shots and long takes, it’s leaving the audience to really familiarize with this world, and the film succeeds to create a well orchestrated realistic tone. The dialogue is sharp and funny and the underlying theme of corrupted societies and fight against authority is very well written into these suburban uncertain characters and how they choose to deal with this situation. Just like in society some of the parents choose to play along and as long as it’s beneficial for them they close their eyes to the problem, while others struggles as to how they should morally act on the situation. It’s an interesting take on social structures and I enjoyed it most of the time.

Sadly I don’t feel like the ending lives up to the quality of the rest of the film. Compared to the leading up to it, the resolution felt flat and unsatisfying. Still I wouldn’t say this film is unworthy to watch, it’s entertaining for sure and the themes and ideas stays with you when you leave the theatre.